Nevermind, I found the problem. someone else here also had the same problem (should have read through more posts I guess).

the issue was my soundcard (in fact I think I have the same sound card as the other poster). I disabled the sound card by managing devices through control panel. plugged my speakers into the integrated motherboard sound output ports and it started right up. I guess creative labs isn't as creative as they used to be. oh well.

I have the steam version of the game.I have reinstalled the game through steam client.the error message suggests that MMDevApi.dll is the cause, but, I have this .dll in my system32 folder already. no other programs fail with this error. I tried searching for a solution online and all I find are snakeoil salesmen trying to sell me some fly-by-night registry fixer upper software.I was able to find one site that I could download MMDevApi.dll but it was an older and smaller version of the one I already have.This is the dump I get for the error. I cant even get the game to start up.Problem signature: Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Application Name: Hinterland.exe Application Version: 1.0.1229.1711 Application Timestamp: 49594c4c Fault Module Name: MMDevApi.dll Fault Module Version: 6.1.7600.16385 Fault Module Timestamp: 4a5bda29 Exception Code: c0000005 Exception Offset: 00018c7d OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3 Locale ID: 1033 Additional Information 1: a7aa Additional Information 2: a7aa91f17ea749d42a4de3b390fa5b3d Additional Information 3: a7aa Additional Information 4: a7aa91f17ea749d42a4de3b390fa5b3d

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Last edited by soldyne on Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.